Hug your kids: Ars reviews Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain isn't without its stumbles, but if you're willing to go along with …

Heavy Rain shouldn't have much going for it. Developed by a man known for his failure to properly end his last big game and filled with what look like quick-time events, it's endlessly dour and depressing... while being exclusive to the PlayStation 3. We said before that there is a good chance Heavy Rain is going to fail. That being said, our time with the game proved it to be a savvy, impressive, and often chilling experience.

If you're a fan of story-driven single-player games, do yourself a favor and at least rent the game. Get through the first few scenes, and give it an hour or two to allow it to grab you. Yes, that's a large investment on a game that is going to leave some cold. For those who are drawn in, however, this is something of an achievement in the art of gaming.

The Story

This is a game that will be more enjoyable the less you know, so we'll try to keep details of the story and the characters light in this review. You'll be asking yourself who the protagonist of the game is, and when the story actually began, and you could possibly change your mind about both questions multiple times throughout the game.

Heavy Rain is the story of four people who find themselves dealing with a dark time in their lives. How they get through this period, and what they do to themselves and others, is up to the player.

The main characters are a father, a private investigator, an FBI agent, and a... well, a woman. How you figure out who that woman is and what she's doing there is an amazing piece of stagecraft—a character says something off-handedly to himself in a seemingly unrelated scene and everything is made clear. There are more than a few scenes like this, where tiny pieces of information are given out, and these point you towards the conclusion. The dour atmosphere owes much to the ever-present rain, and in another clever touch the rain itself ties into the main storyline.

What happens to these four people and the characters around them? That's up to you. The game can end well, or it can turn into a tragedy. During my first playthrough for this review—and I can't wait to play again—I tried my damnedest to keep everyone alive. I failed.

The graphics are an uneven bag. Some scenes look much better than others, although nothing looks bad. It can feel somewhat jarring at times to move from environment to environment and see a jump forward or a fall back in detail and polish.

Inaction: the only thing scarier than your decisions

Everything in the game is controlled by context-sensitive movements and button-presses, but the way they are shown on screen and how they influence the action is where the genius of the control scheme shines through. In some cases, you'll have to hold down one button, and then another, and then another. This can lead to your hands doing weird things on the DualShock 3, and you'll have to get rid of your notions of how the controller fits in your hand during some of these challenges.

This may sound weird, or even counter-intuitive, but these challenges are put in places where your character is being subjected to heavy emotional or physical stress. You're supposed to feel like you're on the edge of failure and pushing your dexterity to the limit, because that matches what the game is putting its characters through. I can't describe what I mean in detail because that would ruin a few plot and character moments.

What happens if you fail a challenge? Maybe you get punched, maybe the action of the screen alters, maybe nothing. If you continue to fail, however, you'll go down the list of adverse outcomes. It's very possible one of the characters will die. When that happens, the game soldiers on, and the narrative continues without that character's participation.

Being put in some of these positions while knowing that death is a real possibility gives the game an edge that I wasn't used to, and that made some of the scenes uncomfortable to play.

You'll also be forced to make very quick decisions, and what you do or don't do may mean death for you or someone else. This isn't a game where you get a binary choice between a "good" action or a "bad" action. In many cases, even after the scene was over, I asked myself if I had done the right thing. Don't take too much time to weigh your options; inaction may lead to something you're even less comfortable with.

You'll also need to be extremely observant. Things that seemed like small details, actions that didn't seem to have any consequences, details that seemed too small to matter—they can all come back and bite you in the ass if you're not paying attention. Again, the consequences may be nothing, or they could be great. The game doesn't play by the rules you're used to, and that's refreshing.

I know that the game isn't going to be for everyone... but these reviews aren't written that way. Considering the text of the review, despite the warning about pacing and voice acting, I expected a "buy" verdict.

One of the characters is an investigator with the FBI, and he has a very special set of glasses that allow him to take video of his surroundings, find clues, and then analyze them later. From a gameplay standpoint, that means you'll be scanning the environment to find things to investigate further, and then you'll dig through those clues in a virtual interface back at the office.

It's a neat little mechanic, but it seems somewhat out of place to have this kind of technology in what often feels like a crime-noir title.

Didn't seem out of place in Blade Runner (where it also rained a lot...)

Originally posted by ZippyDSMlee:Some games/media are so horribly bad you have to make the point fuck copy right this is BS beyond BS.

If a game is bad, how would pirating it send a stronger message than simply not buying it? Pirating would suggest demand for the game, making it more likely that similar games would be produced with more anti-piracy measures. Your suggestion is counter-productive (and illegal).

quote:

Originally posted by Ben Kuchera:I was referring to the glasses used to find clues.

I'm a little confused now. In 'The Bad' you talk about 'Some of the science-fiction elements', indicating that there are multiple sci-fi elements, more than one of which are out of place. Your post on the other hand suggests that you were only talking about one sci-fi element (out of an unknown total quantity) being out of place. Are there other sci-fi elements in the game which are out of place, are there other sci-fi elements which are not out of place r are there no other sci-fi elements? Unless it's the first of those three, you should probably change the review text.

What the review does need is a "try the demo" rating. There's going to be some major disagreements about this game. Like this part of the review:

quote:

but the way they are shown on screen and how they influence the action is where the genius of the control scheme shines through.

'Genius' is not the word I'd use for the control scheme. 'WTF' would be more appropriate. This is the worst control scheme I've ever seen in a game, with the various questions flying around the screen and it requiring some odd actions like shaking the controller. It was infuriatingly annoying and I want nothing to do with the game after trying it.

Originally posted by ZippyDSMlee:Some games/media are so horribly bad you have to make the point fuck copy right this is BS beyond BS.

If a game is bad, how would pirating it send a stronger message than simply not buying it? Pirating would suggest demand for the game, making it more likely that similar games would be produced with more anti-piracy measures. Your suggestion is counter-productive (and illegal).

quote:

Originally posted by Ben Kuchera:I was referring to the glasses used to find clues.

I'm a little confused now. In 'The Bad' you talk about 'Some of the science-fiction elements', indicating that there are multiple sci-fi elements, more than one of which are out of place. Your post on the other hand suggests that you were only talking about one sci-fi element (out of an unknown total quantity) being out of place. Are there other sci-fi elements in the game which are out of place, are there other sci-fi elements which are not out of place r are there no other sci-fi elements? Unless it's the first of those three, you should probably change the review text.

Its only illegal if you get sued over it. ^^And anti piracy schemes only hurt paying consumers like gun laws only hurt legal gun owners.

Ben, for your Skip/Rent/Buy verdict, is it safe to say that is what you would be most satisfied with as a gamer or what you expect most of your audience to agree with? This review definitely felt like you would be happy to have bought the game and the Rent verdict made me feel like I was missing some negatives. Especially since you emphasized the replayability, it seems like something a person would like to be able to replay every once in a while.

I played the demo last week and felt lukewarm about the game. At first, I was really turned off by the PI and his investigating of the prostitute. I couldn't imagine playing an entire game like that. Then when the violent dude showed up and we got into the fight, I felt a little better. I'm not a big fan of these God of War button mashing fights, but I felt the tension.

Then when I went to the crime scene and that guy had his fancy glasses, I felt a little warmer to the game. It started to feel more like a game. After walking around and clicking the sonar button 50 times, I started to get bored again.

I'm going to leave the game in my Gamefly queue. I have a feeling that I'll get the game, play it for an 2-3 hours and then quit from boredom. I'll give it a chance at least. Not a chance in hell I'll buy this game though.

It sounds like we could avoid the whole pirate issue if that original granularity list (which is a good idea, except you want to avoid the slippery slope) had Borrow instead of Pirate. After all, borrowing the game from a friend is going to be cheaper than renting, but more costly than Skipping.

As for the game, if the replayability is as good as Ben makes it out to be, I'd love to see the segment expand with more titles and titles become available for the PC/XBox market. Porting this over would be nice, but better would be more games following the CYOA (I'm not sure what else to call it) model.

His implications is that people who commit criminal acts, do so willingly and disregard the fact it is illegal. Only law-abiding people are concerned by laws - and typically it is their freedoms that are impacted by the restrictions that DRM and gun ownership bring to the table.

Or, in other words, a pirate will just bypass DRM like a violent criminal won't care that it's illegal to own a particular type of gun.

Just because multimedia is a superset of all existing media (including film) a lot of videogame designers get it into their heads that the Next Generation involves cinematic production values mixed with a 'Choose your own adventure' style non-linear narrative. However, this does little for replayability and value for money - so Ars Technica' verdict on Heavy Rain being merely a "Rent", is entirely correct. This is bad news for Sony.

The often overlooked fact is that narrative requires a degree of audience passivity, indeed a lack of control, which is at odds with the feeling of empowerment given to the players of most videogames via an illusion of freedom that hinges on there always being multiple choices in every given situation (and no clear 'right one'). In a sense, games are better off not having stories imposed upon them as that tends to constrain "choice", although, there is scope (in the future) for games to embrace a sufficiently sophisticated partially-directed simulation that their emergent behaviour forms the fabric of an ongoing unscripted narrative.

It is unfortunate that so little is being done in this area, whilst millions are squandered on realistic tears.

This is another one of those games that Sony went out on a limb with, and I'm quite happy they did, it's just nice to see some heavy hitters take risks like this. Our household will be buying a copy for sure.

Unfortunately, the title was published by Sony, so I wouldn't expect a PC or 360 port :P

One minor FYI: In my many travels across north america, I must say that the vast majority of canadians sound just like americans living in the upper half of the usa. I've never heard them overuse the word "wasteland" either.

Great review, Ben. If I understand you correctly, your "Rent" verdict is out of respect for the gamers who just won't get as much out of the game as you did, right?

Either way, this game is at the top of my list of games to buy right now. From what I gather, the story explores some experiences that I've actually had (though not necessarily as any of the playable characters), so I'm really looking forward to seeing how it plays out. That alone is worth the buy.

This is one of those games you either like or hate. I tried the demo and spent about 30 minutes. I can appreciate the branching storylines, etc. But it's just another version of QTE game. What's worse, character design is tiresome and ugly and voice acting near to B-rated movie in a bad way. Button mashing keeps you engaged to certain degree, but I would much preferred if they removed the sixaxis altogether b/c it breaks up the continuity for me and got really annoying a few times. My verdict on this demo is to go and read Agatha Christie's books. I am not going to slog thru 8~10 hours just to find out what's going on.

BTW, I am not opposed to QTE (I found it some what interesting in GOW) or the classic adventure games. This game just doesn't stir up anything in me.

And the movement in this game is atrocious and clunky. I am guessing that bluray's superior storage capability was well used in this game.

I played the demo. Got to the point where some options were swirling around the PI's head, but they were on top on one another, and then went behind his head. While I was waiting for this trainwreck of an interface to sort itself out into readability, the prostitute got impatient and yelled at me. So it's a game that will delay me with its own bad design and then yell at me for being delayed. Whee!

But I soldiered on, and went through the fight scene. Meh... I honestly don't know what to think. I'm pretty open minded when it comes to gaming. This seems to be a twitchier evolution of the point and click adventure genre- a genre I generally enjoy. I'll probably rent it to see if it gets better, but I admit I don't understand the gushing praise some people are expressing. Yeah, it's different and daring, but some of the interface design choices were really not well thought out.

Another possible problem is that I just game off two playthroughs of Mass Effect 2, so I was in A-B-X-Y mode instead of X-O-Square-Triangle mode. The PS3 controller needs triggers. ;-)